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Air Superiority

Updated Oct. 7, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET

The trans-Atlantic tango between Airbus and Boeing took another turn yesterday with the U.S. and EU filing a matched pair of complaints to the World Trade Organization. The EU says the U.S. government subsidizes Boeing via defense contracts; the U.S. says soft loans to Airbus give the European airplane manufacturer an unfair (and illegal) advantage. Is it too much to hope that a WTO case (or two) will end this two-step once and for all?

This spat has been drawn out since around the time of the Wright brothers -- or at...